I am in the process of planning (read paying) for my son’s 21st birthday celebration.

Firstly, I should say I struggle with the idea that I have a son who is about to turn 21. How did that happen? How am I even old enough for this?

We recently have had several chats about what he is doing, his plans for the future and so on. This mostly make me feel like I’m imparting wise and important advice. This mostly makes him feel like he’s doing enough that it looks like he is taking this advice.

He plans to move out of the house at the beginning of next year. He and his long time girlfriend have already started scouting. During a discussion about this over the weekend I was struck by what he views as priority for a home and how this differs from what I looked for when I was doing the same over 20 years ago. I looked for two things: cheap and on a bus route.

Number one on Tyler’s list is an area that has a minimum of a 4Mps ADSL service. This is important enough that he won’t simply take Telkom’s word for it, he is and will get info from neighbours and other sources to establish vital things like low latency. With that in place his major concern is to have an uncapped packaged so he can work and have all the entertainment they need. “I don’t need DSTV, we’ll download all the movies and series we need,” he says.

How amazing. In my day, my home was a place to sleep. A home today is an office and an entertainment hub. A further illustration of the blurring of our professional and personal lives.